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Featured snippets come in various styles, most commonly a paragraph answers a question but a list or table can also be featured. One thing that is consistent within all featured snippets is the quality of the content. Below are tips to optimize your content to be a featured snippet.
When a Google Search user asks a question, Google populates a box with a brief, summarized answer. These quick answers are called featured snippets and are displayed at the top of the search in a box with a link to the page, a page title, and a URL. Featured snippets make it easier for users to find answers to their questions without having to research on several pages. For your web page, being selected as a featured snippet can increase traffic and boost your rankings, and typically on a very large scale. One study reported that a click-through rate of a page featured in a snippet increased from 2% to 80%.
These easy-to-read snippets present information clearly to the user and are highly sought after in the SEO world. So, how do you get your information to be a featured snippet? Google’s famous algorithm detects high-quality websites that answer the user’s questions and chooses to feature the pages with the highest quality score. While you cannot pay to be featured, you can optimize your site to feature the type of quality content that Google is searching to feature.
Like all content, media including videos and images perform very well in boosting traffic. Featured snippets can also be videos or images that answer the queries. If your information can be presented in a video or image, it will have a much higher chance of being a featured snippet, and consequently, boost site traffic.
Below is a featured snippet of an EM Search Consulting client. The clear presentation of the Lemon Law in Nebraska with the image draws the attention of the user and dramatically increases the likelihood of them clicking to find out more information.
Despite the inability to purchase featured snippet space, with the right optimizations, EM Search Consulting can help your site become a featured snippet.
The EMSC Strategy for a successful campaign. Best Practices and Strategy
to optimize to be a featured snippet, consider how this information would best be displayed. A clear definition of a service or product would be a great candidate for a paragraph snippet while a topic such as “Top 10 Cosmetic Dental Procedures of 2010” would be best presented in a list.
instructions, health, financial, math answers, and requirements for various industries or licenses. Know how to frame your content to answer the questions that users are searching.
What is / Why is / How do / How to are often the beginning phrases users search, so write your content to answer these types of questions.
Having a high organic search ranking is a common way companies content is selected for featured snippets. Be sure targeted keywords are ranking well and follow SEO best practices to achieve a high organic search ranking.
To be considered by Google to be featured as a snippet, the site must be ranked in the top 10 for that search, but it is not required to be #1. By optimizing your pages to increase ranking, there is a very good chance your content could be selected as a featured snippet.
